Microsoft access is a robust database tool and connects directly to the data warehouse.  It is important to note that, although you can change data right in Access because it's a database tool, if the data is truely outdated, it should be changed in the originating transactional system. 

Access will allow you to do things with the warehouse such as:

• Connect data to your local spreadsheets
• Run reports from data from multiple transactional systems
• Create pivot tables for summary reporting and analysis
• Run queries to analyze data
• Prepare data to be moved to another tool, like Excel

You can find a lot of good information online pertaining to Access, including online tutorials on the Microsoft web site.  Below is some Carleton-specific documentation that will help you to connect to the data warehouse, along with some of the specific functions in Access that you might use.

 Connecting